A variety of technologies exist for networking consumer electronics (CE) devices in home networks. These technologies enable one device on a network to control other devices remotely for content retrieval. So that devices can communicate, they must use a common communication protocol, i.e., the same message and data format and procedures must be used between devices for the devices to be able to exchange data.
Two network protocols have become widely used, namely, IEEE 1394, also referred to as “i.LINK”, and IP-based networks using universal plug-and-play (UPnP) protocols. IEEE 1394 has been adapted to many digital audio/video (A/V) products such as digital TV (DTV), video cassette recorders (VCR), hard disc recorders (HDR), set-top boxes (STB), etc. On the other hand, IP-based protocols, which are more PC-oriented, are expected to be increasingly adopted by CE devices, particularly in light of the direction of the Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA).
The present invention recognizes that these two network technologies are not interoperable, that is, a IEEE 1394 device cannot communicate directly with a UPnP device. Accordingly, a user may not be able to use a newly purchased UPnP-enabled media server, for example, with an existing IEEE 1394 DTV, complicating updating a home network system.
The present invention further recognizes that one solution to this issue is to use the so-called “RemoteUI” protocol on the UPnP architecture, which enables one UPnP device to exchange information on a user interface (UI) with another UPnP device as well as a user's input. Another approach is to use IP-over-1394 protocol, which enables IP-based communication on IEEE 1394 networks. In these approaches, however, the IEEE devices and/or UPnP devices are required to implement additional translation protocols such as Remote UI or IP-over-1394. This means, unfortunately, that conventional IEEE 1394 devices and UPnP devices that do not implement translation protocols cannot communicate with each other. Accordingly, the present invention critically recognizes a need to enable a device that communicates only in UPnP to exchange data with a device that communicates only in IEEE 1394.